The motet evolved from the Notre Dame school when upper-register voices were added to discant sections, usually strophic interludes, in a longer sequence of organum. Usually the discant representing a strophic sequence in Latin which was sung as a descant over a cantus firmus, which typically was a Gregorian chant fragment with different words from the descant. The motet took a definite rhythm from the words of the verse, and as such appeared as a brief rhythmic interlude in the middle of the longer, more chantlike organum.

In the 12th century, traveling noblemen and musicians called troubadours began traveling southern France. Inspired by the Code of Chivalry, troubadours composed and performed vernacular songs (in contrast to the older tradition, dating back to the 10th century, of goliards. Provence was the region with the most troubadours, but the practice soon spread north and aristocrats like Adam de la Halle became the first trouvères. Contemporaneous with the troubadours was the rise of the trouvères, another itinerant class of musicians, who used the langue d'oil, while the troubadours used langue d'oc. This period ended abruptly with the Albigensian Crusade, which decimated southern France.

Two of the major developments in music in the 14th century occurred on France. The first was the ars nova, the new, predominantly secular music which began with the publication of the Roman de Fauvel, and culminated in the rondeaux, ballades, lais, virelais, motets, and single surviving mass of Guillaume de Machaut, who died in 1370. Philippe de Vitry, also a representative of the ars nova, invented an improved system of musical notation and may have been the first composer of the isorhythmic motet. The other important development was the extremely complex and sophisticated art of secular song which flourished in Avignon at the very end of the 14th century (see ars subtilior).

The move of the center of musical activity from Paris to Burgundy defines the beginning of the musical Renaissance in France. The political instability under weak kings, and continued dismemberment and acquisition of territory by the English during the Hundred Years' War all contributed to moving musicians east.

The motet was known from the Medieval era, but after about 1463, it evolved into an utterly distinct form. The cascading, passing chords created by the interplay between multiple voices, and the absence of a strong or obvious beat, are the features that distinguish medieval and Renaissance vocal styles. Instead, the Renaissance motet is a short polyphonic musical setting in imitative counterpoint, for chorus, of a religious text not specifically connected to the liturgy of a given day, and therefore suitable for use in any service. The texts of antiphons were frequently used as motet texts. This is the sort of composition that is most familiarly named by the name of "motet," and the Renaissance period marked the flowering of the form.

With the arrival of Calvinism, music was relatively simple, at least in the parts of France subject to Calvinist influence. In strictly Calvinist areas, the only musical expression allowed was singing of French translations of the Psalms, for instance those written by Goudimel (who was killed in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572). Starting with the 17th century, Italian and German opera was the most influential form of music, though French opera composers like Balthasar de Beaujoyeaux, Jean Philippe Rameau and Jean Baptiste Lully made a distinctive national style characterized by dance rhythms, spoken dialogue and a lack of Italian recitative arias.

In the late Renaissance and early Baroque period, approximately from 1570 to 1650 and peaking from 1610 and 1635, a type of popular secular vocal music called air de cour spread throughout France. Though airs de cour originally used only one voice with lute accompaniment, they grew to incorporate four to five voices by the end of the 16th century. Halfway through the 17th century, they switched back again to a single voice.